Response to the Launch of Sputnik

Interviewer:

AIR MARSHAL, CAN YOU
RECALL THE TIME WHEN YOU WERE IN THE UNITED STATES WHEN THE NEWS OF SPUTNIK CAME THROUGH, AND
WHAT THE REACTION WAS AT THE TIME?

Cross:

Certainly, I shall
never forget it. I was on the tarmac at the Pinecastle Air Force Base in Florida at the United
States Strategic Air Command bombing competition. And when the news came through of the, of the
Sputnik, the surprise, really, the astonishment of the Americans that they could have been
beaten to it was very apparent.

Interviewer:

DID THEY DRAW ANY
CONSEQUENCES FROM IT THAT YOU RECALL?

Cross:

My main impression
that I still have was their astonishment that anyone could have beaten the to it. That was the,
that was the impression that I remember. The, the defense aspect wasn't immediately
apparent.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS YOUR OWN
REACTION?

Cross:

Not really. The full
implications of, came to be apparent when we thought about it later. But at the precise moment I
was I was just an interested party.

Interviewer:

A LOT OF PEOPLE IN
EUROPE -- AND PARTICULARLY THE FRENCH, I'M THINKING AMONG OTHERS OF GENERAL GALLOIS -- DREW THE
CONCLUSION FROM SPUTNIK THAT NOW THE UNITED STATES WAS VULNERABLE TO ATOMIC ATTACK BY THE
RUSSIANS AND THEREFORE THE NUCLEAR DETERRENT THAT THE AMERICANS HAD, THE NUCLEAR UMBRELLA OVER
EUROPE, WAS NOT AS SECURE AS IT HAD BEEN. DO YOU THINK ANYONE ELSE WAS DRAWING THAT CONCLUSION
IN THE RAF?

Cross:

No. I can't, I can't
recall that was the immediate reaction of the people in the service. Because it wasn't long
afterwards that the arrangement for us to man Thor in this country was made and in fact, we had
a deterrent with a ballistic missile as well as with the manned bombers. I think that really
that was the impression that we had in Bomber Command, in the service generally.

Relationship between SAC and RAF

Interviewer:

COULD YOU TELL ME OF
THE CHANGE OF ATTITUDE THAT TOOK PLACE IN THE RELATIONS BETWEEN SAC AND BOMBER
COMMAND?

Cross:

When we first went to
the States to Omaha to see the Strategic Air Command headquarters and their commander, first of
all, General LeMay and then shortly afterwards General Power the were always very welcoming, but
it was very apparent that it was not a business visit. When we participated in the bombing
competitions and had done very well in them, and the bomb was blown off at Christmas island, the
megaton bomb, their whole attitude changed. It seemed to me that they didn't recognize us as a
worthwhile business partner. And from that time onwards, cooperation was complete.

Interviewer:

WHAT PARTICULAR
THINGS CHANGED?

Cross:

Well, we had our own,
for instance, an independent plan to implement the deterrent if that was necessary. After this
time there was great consultation on the SAC plan and the Bomber Command plan to the benefit of
both. And, and to see that there was no crash of interest.

Interviewer:

WAS THERE ANY
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE KINDS OF TARGETS THAT THE RAF WAS PLANNING TO HIT WITH ITS MUCH SMALLER
FORCE AND THE KIND OF PRIORITY TARGETS THAT SAC WAS AFTER?

Cross:

My recollection is
that SAC recover, we covering a great many targets of different categories. Our targets, as
fitted into one of their categories but not into all three of them. That was that was my
remembrance of it.

Interviewer:

WHAT BASICALLY WERE
THE RAF'S TARGETS? IT HAD TO BE A COUNTER-CITY OPERATION, PROBABLY?

Cross:

It was, it was
primarily a counter-city operation.

Interviewer:

COULD YOU EXPLAIN WHY
THAT WAS NECESSARY AS WELL?

Cross:

Well, I can't because
I was, I was, I just did it as I was told. This is the unfortunate -- I got we have this list of
targets from Whitehall and that was it. We, and we didn't query them. We, the only, this is, I
hope this isn't...the only queries that we had were when they were extreme range and this sort
of thing. We would prefer not to do that or do this one -- which is saying, well, there were
very many more targets than we had a capability of attacking so there was no problem on that
side of it.

Interviewer:

BUT I MEAN THE
STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND HAD A VERY ELABORATE INTELLIGENCE OPERATION OF ITS OWN WHOSE PRIME PURPOSE
WAS TO IDENTIFY TARGETS, WAS THERE ANY EQUIVALENT WAY OF DOING THINGS IN THE RAF OR DID YOUR
TARGETS COME FROM...?

Cross:

Our, our list of
targets came from the Ministry of Defense and how they arrived at those targets, I was not privy
to. I was not consulted on the targets...and only from operation reasons did, was there any
discussion on targets with Bomber Command.

RAF's Response Capability

Interviewer:

CAN WE JUST GO OVER
THE GROWTH OF THE V-BOMBER FORCE? AT AROUND THE TIME THAT IT WAS REALLY COMING INTO ITS OWN IN
THE LATE '50s, IT BECAME FASHIONABLE IN BRITAIN TO TALK ABOUT IT BEING ALREADY VULNERABLE TO
MISSILE ATTACK, PARTICULARLY FROM THE SOVIET UNION, AND THEREFORE ALREADY OUT-OF DATE. YOU WERE
IN COMMAND OF IT AT THAT POINT, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO CRITICISMS LIKE THAT ONE?

Cross:

I was not at that
time Commander in Chief. I was with the Group Commander of the First V-Bomber group...

Interviewer:

BUT YOU WERE
COMMANDER BETWEEN 1960 AND '63...

Cross:

Certainly, but, as
you remember there was a period before the Sputnik where the vulnerability of the V-bombers on
the ground was not relevant. The was plenty of time to get off before the Russian manned bombers
could have arrived. After the... with the arrival of the Sputnik and the corollary that we could
now be bombarded with missiles, the whole of the V-Bomber force became vulnerable on the ground.
We therefore went from very wide dispersal plan, dispersing the aircraft down to small packets,
four on airfields all over the country, and we, by technical means and by hard training, plus
the use of the Fylingdales warning radar, we worked up a capability of getting the whole command
airborne in four minutes. This, this meant that with the warning from Fylingdales of the, of the
missiles, by the time they arrived, the whole of the V-bomber force would have been in the
air.

Interviewer:

THAT'S A REMARKABLY
SHORT TIME. SAC WAS PRETTY PLEASED TO GET ITS FORCE OFF IN 15 MINUTES.

Cross:

Yes, we were much
quicker than SAC. Of course, SAC had more warning for their, for their aircraft in the States.
They didn't have the same warning as we did for their aircraft in England. But we really were
very much faster off the ground than Strategic Air Command. One of the reasons was the we by
technical arrangement managed to start all engines simultaneously.

Cancellation of Skybolt Program

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS YOUR
PERSONAL REACTION WHEN YOU HEARD THAT SKYBOLT WAS GOING TO BE CANCELLED?

Cross:

One of great
disappointment. Looking ahead and seeing the way the Russian air defenses were building up, it
became very apparent to us that it was going to be increasingly difficult to penetrate those
defenses. And Skybolt, of course, allowed us to go to the edge of the defenses and then launch
the missile outside, without penetrating the defenses. So the cancellation of Skybolt was a very
great disappointment to me.

Interviewer:

IN A WAY IT REALLY
SPELLED THE END, IN THE LONG RUN, OF THE RAF AS THE BEARER OF THE BRITISH DETERRENT?

Cross:

It certainly did. We
prolonged it for a time, as you know with the air launched Blue Steel missile, shorter range. We
wouldn't have had, penetrate the full defenses, but we couldn't stand outside them as we could
have done with the Skybolt, so we prolonged the life of the V-bombers at altitude in that way,
and then finally the V-bombers went down underneath the radar for the remainder of their life
and then until Polaris took over.

Interviewer:

...COULD YOU PERHAPS
PUT THAT IN YOUR OWN WORDS, THAT THE CANCELLATION OF SKYBOLT DID DOOM THE RAF AS THE CARRIER OF
THE DETERRENT?

Cross:

Yes. The, the thing
was that it wasn't a thing in which was ever a big tragedy or anything of that sort because
living with the thing you could see it coming. It was a very gradual business that we would be
fading out and it was much too big, if I may say so, much too big a subject to be anything to do
with inter-service rivalry or anything of that sort. We were, we were against the Polaris for
one reason only, that Skybolt would have been much cheaper in terms of money than Polaris. But
once Strategic Air Command had lost interest in Skybolt, we could see the writing on the wall,
that we wouldn't be able to afford to procure it ourselves without help from the States. So we
were disappointed, but that was, that was the most we were, I think.

Britain's Nuclear Program

Interviewer:

DURING THE PERIOD YOU
WERE COMMANDING BOMBER COMMAND WAS PROBABLY THE PEAK PERIOD FOR DEMONSTRATIONS, MANY OF THEM
OUTSIDE RAF BASES, BY THE CND AND THE ANTI-BOMB MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN -- WHICH SUBSEQUENTLY FADED
AWAY FOR SOME 20 YEARS UNTIL IT CAME BACK IN THE LATE '70S. SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE TENDED TO SAY
THAT AIR MARSHALS AND GENERALS AND SOLDIERS WERE CULPABLE FOR EVEN AGREEING TO DEAL WITH THESE
WEAPONS. IF YOU HAD BEEN TALKING TO SOMEBODY LIKE THAT IN THIS ROOM AND THEY SAID HOW CAN YOU DO
THIS TERRIBLE IMMORAL THING, WHAT WOULD YOUR REACTION HAVE BEEN TO THAT?

Cross:

I would have said to
them that the invention of the nuclear weapon was the greatest blessing that ever struck mankind
because from our knowledge of the power of the weapons, it made major war between two major
powers or more unthinkable, and therefore, it avoided the sort of slaughter which we saw in the
First World War and to a lesser extent, in the Second World War, they're the same in Russia.
Therefore, it was a blessing, not a... nothing else.

Interviewer:

DID YOU EVER HAVE ANY
DOUBTS THAT IT WAS RIGHT FOR BRITAIN TO DEVELOP ITS OWN NUCLEAR DETERRENT AS OPPOSED TO RELYING
ON THE UNITED STATES?

Cross:

Frankly, I didn't
think about it, because by the time I was involved in the, in the business, the policy had been
made, so I didn't, I had no doubts. It wouldn't have made any difference if I had, the
government had decided the policy by this time.

Interviewer:

BUT WHEN WE TALKED
EARLIER YOU SAID THAT YOU MET THE AMERICANS, YOU LIKED THE AMERICANS, BUT THEY WERE
BUSINESSMEN...

Cross:

Not really, because I
was thinking of ordinary war...on that side. They took their orders from the Pentagon. We took
ours from the Ministry of Defence. So that, on our level, this sort of discussion never
occurred, and nor did I really get any impression in the context of nuclear operations the sort
of... occasional thing where they were looking after their own interests.

Interviewer:

JUST CUT...

Cross:

We had, we had
demonstrations at first around the Thor stations and they spread then to the airfields as well.
But as far as our, the force who were manning the aircraft and the, and the missiles, these
demonstrations had no effect whatsoever. The attitude of the -- from the bottom to the top was
that these people didn't understand what the business was about. And they had certain amount of
amusement and contempt for these people who they considered were wasting their time
demonstrating. That was the, that was my lasting memory of that period in Bomber
Command.

Interviewer:

OK...YOU SAY THAT
YOUR IMPRESSION OF THE AMERICANS BEING SURPRISED...WOULD IT BE FAIR TO SAY THAT MAYBE
THAT...

Cross:

They didn't they
didn't, I don't know why, they welcomed us -- that would probably be the way to say it -- they
welcomed us being in the same business, and at that time, we were the only other people in the
Western world in that business.

France's Nuclear Program

Interviewer:

DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING
TO DO WITH THE FRENCH DURING THE PERIOD YOU WERE IN COMMAND?

Cross:

They visited...when
they were building up their Force de Frappe they came to Bomber Command with the agreement of
the government and we briefed them, or explained how we, how we did it. Readiness, quick takeoff
and so on. It was entirely a one-way, one-way traffic. I learned nothing about the Force de
Frappe, which at that time, of course, didn't exist. They were just starting to build
it.

Interviewer:

DID YOU HAVE ANY
VIEWS ABOUT THE FRENCH ABILITY TO DO THE JOB?

Cross:

No. Because I had
left Bomber Command by the time the Force de Frappe got going, so I never had any inside
knowledge of their capabilities.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer:

DO YOU
RECALL...ANYONE FROM THE PENTAGON -- NO, I REMEMBER WE TALKED ABOUT THIS AND YOU DIDN'T, SO...I
THINK THAT'S ABOUT IT. LET'S CUT THERE.

Cross:

It's very difficult
to judge the effect of deterrence, except as long as you remain at peace, you assume it's
working. I suppose you could say that the Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the first tests of the
deterrent force in Bomber Command. We very quickly brought the whole force to readiness without
any fuss or without any bother. Attention was focused elsewhere, but our friends, the Americans
and the Thor force were all up to instant readiness, and the Americans knew exactly that they
had a friend at their side fully at readiness. That's how I remember the Cuban Missile
Crisis.